


Finding Home

by Timonger



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Dreams, Fanart, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Elim Garak, Oblivious Julian Bashir, Original Character(s), Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Cardassia, Romantic Dreams, Slow Burn, Worldbuilding, did I mention slow burn?, separated, separated on Cardassia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27502549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timonger/pseuds/Timonger
Summary: Post-Canon CardassiaJulian Bashir and Elim Garak experience upheaval after the Dominion War. They are learning who they are again, together and apart.  Finding the meaning of "home" again.
Relationships: Elim Garak & Kelas Parmak, Elim Garak & Original Character(s), Julian Bashir & Elim Garak, Julian Bashir & Original Character(s), Julian Bashir/Elim Garak, Julian Bashir/Ezri Dax
Comments: 11
Kudos: 36





	1. Isolation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: there are mentions of mental health issues, depression, loneliness, in this story.

“Julian, I… I think we should break up.”

“What?”

Julian looked up from his plate of _hasperat_ to the concerned face of his girlfriend. Ezri looked down and pulled her hands into her lap. Flickers of concern and fear danced across her face before she raised her head to face him squarely with brows drawn together.

“We need to break up, Julian.” she said with a finality that had Julian quickly file through the last happy four months they had shared as a couple.

“Where is this coming from Ezri?” he said as he reached across the small table, trying to connect with her somehow, to mend what she thought was broken. “I thought we were happy, I’ve been happy, I thought you were too.”

“I was. I really thought I was. We’ve had so much fun, and you’ve been such a source of happiness for me over these past few months,” she said, looking longingly at his hands, but staying still in her seat. When she looked up at him again, he could see the heavy line of unshed tears threatening to spill. “But this isn’t healthy. It’s not sustainable.”

He sputtered, searching for something to say.

“Since I met you, since Ezri met you, my life has been so tumultuous. You were this bright shining beacon of hope to me. Ezri thought you were handsome and so confident, but Jadzia remembered how silly and charming you used to be. It made me trust you and want to spend time with you.” At this, tears silently started to fall. In a dazed state of shock, Julian noticed they glittered like diamonds before shattering on the table between them.

“But the others have more objectivity. The more settled I become as Dax, the more balanced their voices are becoming. And they’re right, what we have, what we’re doing… This won't last, Julian, not in a way that will make us happy.”

Suddenly angry at the eight previous hosts he never met before, Julian leaned forward, struggling to keep his voice to a conversational level.

“Ezri, what are you talking about, we’re in love! I love you!” he hissed.

She winced at his words, like they were striking her.

“No, we aren’t. I thought we were too, but this isn’t love Julian! This is…” she paused searching for the words anywhere but in Julian's face. “This is desperation! We’re both adrift, trying to hold onto something, anything good after all the pain we suffered in the war. I thought I needed someone familiar to hold onto while I was figuring out what it is to be Dax, and you…. You, Julian….”

Julian let the anger and confusion show plainly on his face as he eased back in his chair, waiting for the blow he knew was coming. The tears fell faster, streaming down her cheeks, and she covered her face, as if she couldn’t bear to tell him while looking at him. 

“I hate it! But, you’re using me to feel safe!”

“What are you talking about?” Julian hated how cold his voice sounded, as if the last year they’d shared hadn’t even happened. 

“You’re afraid you’re being left behind and tossed aside by all your friends. You’re afraid you’ll disappear and no one will notice.” she mustered her courage and raised her glistening eyes to meet his stony gaze. “Again.”

With that single word the buzzing activity of the promenade and the Replimat muffled to an undulating static and his vision narrowed to a tunnel. As if his body was floating somewhere near the ceiling, Julian watched himself stand up from the table silently as Ezri reached towards him, her mouth was moving but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. He saw her sit back down, concern painted on her face, as he pushed in his chair, picked up his uneaten lunch and recycled it at the replicator.

He watched himself narrowly avoid running into a Bolian ensign and his Vulcan companion, he ignored Quark’s grating tone, high pitched spikes of sound he couldn’t decipher as he drifted past the bustling bar. A few hundred feet back in Medical, he started to return to himself in this familiar place. From a distance he asked Nurse Jabara that he not be disturbed until his next appointment, before he sat at his desk in his little used office. 

As he lowered himself into his chair, he suddenly entered back into his body and all the emotions that were swirling there. In the half an hour before a minor emergency arrived in Medical in the shape of Engineer Trainee Galas with plasma burns and a sprained wrist, Julian stewed. 

He was angry at Ezri, and through her, angry at Jadzia and the previous Dax hosts. They had to be manipulating her! He tried to focus on the time they had shared since she arrived on the station, getting to know Ezri, and through her, getting to know Dax again. That distant crush he had had on Jadzia returned with fresh bright energy. He was so happy when she decided to stay after she had arrived so lost and confused. Seeing her grow and become more sure of herself. Her smiling face, that expression of shy concern that held a glimmer of recognition when she was really listening, the thoughtful little gestures that were just so sweet and made him feel taken care of. His feelings for Jadzia paled compared to what had grown in his heart for Ezri. 

It was different this time! 

It was! 

How could she discount their relationship so quickly, dismiss his feelings so out of hand! Using her…. How could she even say that? What they had was a partnership of equals! Strong and true! With his anger towards Dax flaring up irrationally, flashes of other partings and changes he’d endured since the end of the war bubbled up.

Kira snapping at everyone in Ops or who dared to come to her with a problem or issue now that Odo had joined the Great link, contrasted with the melancholy peace she had projected when they had heard the Captain had gone missing in the Pah Wraith caves. 

_The Prophets must have called him to the celestial temple._ She’d whispered. 

He’d only heard her thanks to his augmented hearing. He was still angry how bloody serene she was about the disappearance of Sisko. 

_Our friend has most likely been abducted by non-corporeal aliens!_ He wanted to yell at her, knowing she wouldn’t, she couldn’t see it that way. 

He didn’t want to press her on it anyway. 

Even without the red eyes and quickly dried damp cheeks, he knew how painful the wound Odo had left in her heart was. He’d seen her more than a few times staring out at the wormhole whenever the nearest window-port swung past it. They’d all had to say goodbye to too many people over the last few weeks, not to mention years. 

He remembered hugging Miles and Keiko before they headed to Earth with their young family, wishing them luck with a bright smile on his face as a small part of him wondered what he would do now his best friend was leaving him. Earth being so far away from the Bajor system, they wouldn’t be able to chat like they used to, about history and their worries and hopes, their dreams. Things were changing. They’d promised to write, but Julian knew his friend, as much as they cared about each other, Miles was not a devoted correspondent. He’d heard Keiko complain about that nearly every time she returned from a long Research trip. 

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself!” He chided himself before standing up to pace around his small office. “Be Happy for him, Julian! He’s been through enough, teaching is a great opportunity and he deserves it! He deserves to go home.”

A heavy weight seemed to press on his shoulders, forcing him to slump back down into his chair. 

Suddenly memories of another small room filled his mind, stabs of sympathetic grief and despair threatened to overtake him as they often did when he couldn’t sleep, alone in bed, deep in the night. 

His tone had been so pained that day, the devastation to his home too great to take in with simple casualty reports. Julian’s feeble attempts at comfort had been pathetic. The anger, frustration, and raw hurt in Garak’s voice, Julian couldn’t bear to look at him too long. Sputtering about the strength of Cardassia and her people was the most Julian could think to offer his oldest friend in the face of such an unfathomable loss. 

_Of course it’ll survive! But not as the cardassia I knew!_ Garak had thrown back at him, mourning a place he could never return to. Even as he offered an apology to his clumsiness, Garak had soothed him, offering a balm of friendship even when his own heart must be broken beyond what simple words could fix. 

_You’ve been such a good friend._

This was the one that he kept hidden away. The farewell that hurt the most and left him with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was the one that still cut sharp and deep when he brought it out. Wincing at his intense regret and shame he shoved that most painful memory down deep, back where he couldn’t find it easily, where it couldn’t bite and scrape and gnaw away at any scrap of happiness and light he was desperately trying to cling to after the war.

_“You’re afraid you’re being left behind and tossed aside by all your friends. You’re afraid you’ll disappear and no one will notice. Again.”_

Ezri’s teary but determined face flashed across his mind again, but the numb anger was gone. He hated it too, but she was right. 

In the beginning, they spent nearly every free moment together, but as Julian thought about the last few weeks, he noticed a pattern. Ezri had canceled dates to the holosuites. He tried to interest her in holodeck programs similar to the ones he and Miles enjoyed, but she said Human history wasn't that interesting for her and if he liked fighting so much would he want to try a Klingon program? Their lunches had reduced to twice a week rather than every day. In response he had taken more shifts, desperate, almost frantic to stay busy, to completely exhaust himself so he wouldn’t have to think. They slept together even less. In the last two weeks she’d stayed the night only once. In the frantic early days of their relationship, they had been together every night. Ezri had been growing this distance between them, and he hadn’t even noticed. So wrapped up in staying busy, relying on her to fill in the few gaps he had left, he’d taken their relationship for granted. 

This was a wake up call for him. She was hurt, but he could still mend their relationship, if she gave him a chance. 

After his shift he went to Ezri’s quarters. She answered the door almost as soon as he opened it. She looked at him cautiously, worried he might dissociate again. She stood aside and let him enter the main room. 

“Julian, I...I’m so sorry about what I said, I had no right to bring up such a painful memory like that.” she said quickly, hands fluttering with nervous energy.

"Ezri, no, you don't need to apologize." Things felt so awkward after their argument at lunch. Julian stared at the floor searching for what to say, arms stiff at his sides. Gathering his courage and tamping down his pride, he closed his eyes.

"You're right, Ezri. You were right, what you said at lunch.” he opened his eyes and saw her move to speak. “No, please, let me get this all out. Things have been changing so much here since the end of the war. I think… I think I have been using you, for some sense of continuity, a stable place in all the chaos that's been going on.”

Glad to get the hard part out, he moved forward to grab her hands, desperately searching her eyes for some spark of what he used to see there. Her face filled with a gentle hope and he pressed on, encouraged that she would accept what he had to say next.

“That was selfish of me. What you said made me realize I need to change, and I will! But you were wrong about one thing. I love you, Ezri. I do, you say I don't, but I know I do!” he could hear the desperation in his voice. He knew this was his last chance, he had to try and convince her that even with the turmoil that had been plaguing him, plaguing them, his feelings were true. 

After this pronouncement, she looked away and her hands went limp beneath his. He felt her tugging them away and he let her go reluctantly. She turned to face the window-port across the room.

“Why?” she asked, barely above a whisper. Swallowing a groan of frustration, Julian searched within himself for something that would convince her.

“You’re so beautiful, and, I mean, I think we’re pretty compatible in bed. But that’s not why I fell in love with you. You’re so kind and thoughtful. You’re a great listener, I always feel better after I've talked to you. You’re smart and you have so much experience and so many stories, I've learned so much from you.”

She turned around, and for some reason, she looked angry.

“Those are all things I do for you, those are qualities you benefit from. Why do you love _me_?” she said, emphasizing the last word as she gestured towards herself, tapping her chest with her pointed hand.

Julian felt frantic, trying to understand what she was talking about. All those things were her, what made her so special to him.

“You don’t even understand what I'm talking about.” she said shaking her head in disbelief. 

“Ezri, please, help me understand, we can fix this. Now I know what I'm doing wrong, I wasn’t giving you what you need, but I’ll be better! I’ll make new friends, I won’t rely on you so much. Don’t throw everything we have together away like this!” Julian hated the pleading tone that entered his voice, even to him he sounded pathetic, clinging on to the last dregs of a relationship. He’d never done this before, if it wasn’t love, why was he fighting so hard to keep her?

“Julian, please,” she was crying through her anger and frustration, great fat drops streaming down her face, only making her beautiful blue eyes sparkle more, “please, it’s over. I can’t. Please, I can’t go on like this. I’m going to lose myself, I’m going to become someone I can't respect. Please, If you think you love me, you’ll let me go.”

Julian felt like he was breaking apart. He tried to think of the right thing to say that would make her reconsider, but she just kept crying and turned away from him, her shoulders shaking with her silent sobs. He stood in shock for a few moments more before leaving in a daze, totally defeated. 

It was a shock when he found himself in his quarters, in front of the replicator, a cold cup of red leaf tea waiting. Odd, as the only order of red leaf tea programmed in his replicator was piping hot and not something he ever ordered for himself. He knew it had been 3 hours and 24 minutes since he left Ezri in her quarters, but it was remote, like a recorded security tape, crystalline detail taking up space in a database.

He recycled the glass, banishing the image of grey scaled fingers curling around a cup just like it from his mind’s eye, before ordering extra sweet Tarkalian tea instead and walked over to look out his window-port. A Bajoran transport ship was just leaving, most likely full of tourists and pilgrims who visited the temple on station, and weekly commuters headed home. It sedately drifted between the pylons to open space before powering up main thrusters to return to Bajor. Under the comforting humm of the station, a quiet thought floated up from the depths of his mind. 

_I guess no one wants me._

He shook his head with a grimace. No! Thoughts like that were exactly what Ezri was talking about, he needed to face that things were changing. Things had changed. He was trying to cling on to his old life. The way things had been before the war, before his friends and coworkers had moved on to start new chapters of their lives. He knew he had to honor Ezri’s wishes, as much as it tore himself up inside. He had to face his future and forge his own way forward. 

~~~~

The next few weeks were a blur to him. He went to work, took as many shifts as he could, he played racquetball by himself 4 times a week, he ate in his quarters alone, went to sleep early, woke up early. He didn’t go to Ops except on official business, he didn’t go to Quarks, he didn’t visit the holosuites, he didn’t go to the Replimat. 

His life was work, exercise, and sleep. 

Of course he saw Ezri around the station, and when he went to Ops, but he couldn’t bear to talk to her. Partly because it hurt, and partly because he was embarrassed. She had been right again. 

As much as he missed her friendship, missed her company, he didn’t think about her any more or less than when they were a couple. Before they slept together the first time, a large portion of his mind had been on a constant loop of _Ezri Ezri Ezri_ . After, it had gone quiet, and he’d just assumed that was because they were a couple, she was there in his arms, smiling at him, for him, he didn’t need to fantasize anymore. But now that he thought about it, when they were a couple, he hadn’t thought about her all that much when they weren’t together. Sure, he looked forward to seeing her, and when they spent time together, but he never wondered in the middle of the day _I wonder what Ezri’s doing right now_ , or _Ezri would like this_ over a knick knack on the Promenade or an interesting article he had read. 

He had been so sure this time. 

Palis had been his first serious relationship. He thought he was in love with her. He’d seriously considered marrying her. After they talked about it, they decided their goals were too different, but someday, maybe they could be together again. She wanted to be prima ballerina and he wanted to explore the cosmos, curing illness and making discoveries. They’d parted as friends, but didn’t stay in touch like they promised. 

Once he’d arrived on Deep Space Nine, he set his sights on almost any pretty woman who came through the station. Julian could admit now he let his imagination get the better of him at the time, playing at “international man of mystery”. Thank goodness Section 31 had thoroughly soured his taste for all things “spy”.

 _You lost your taste for the women long before you lost your taste for the espionage._ A traitorous little voice whispered at the edges of his perception. He dismissed it along with the ghost of a sly smile and intense blue eyes. 

Leeta had been a lot of fun, but neither of them had been serious. She had probably been the easiest relationship he ever had. They both knew it was just a temporary fling, the welcome companionship of two lonely people. 

With Ezri everything had felt so different, so much more intense, but the more he thought about it, as much as it hurt, he began to realize why. When she arrived she seemed so innocent and fragile, unsure of everything around her. But with the Dax symbiote she had gained confidence every day, and where at first he may have been looking for Jadzia, he started to see Ezri more and more as she came into her own. Near the end of the war, when everything had felt so tenuous, the idea of Ezri had seemed like the only good thing he had to hold on to. She was a melding of new but familiar, like the fulfilment of a delayed promise never expected to be realized. When they got together right at the end he felt so happy that they had each other in those dark times. Everything had been so intense in those early days, he mistook it for love when it was just lust wrapped up in friendship. He knew they needed to talk. If he was really going to move forward and make a new life for himself, he needed to mend what he could. He knew how painful it could be if he didn’t. 

_You’ve been such a good friend._

Over the next busy weeks, as much as he tried to distract himself from the inevitable conversation he needed to have with Ezri, he found his work less fulfilling than it had once been. Reflecting on his early years on station, it had all been new. Freshly graduated, far from anything familiar, every patient, every case of Alorian Flu, plasma burns, or Rigellian pox felt like battling a dragon come to destroy his kingdom, and he was the valiant knight, the only thing in the way of total destruction. 

But now, each day dragged on, the same cases, the same faces, the same diseases. Sure every now and then a freighter would come in with a case of this or that, or some terrible injury that required an experienced surgeon, but those were few and far between. He scolded himself when his thoughts drifted into this territory. He was happy there were no plagues to cure, or mass casualties to tend to, but at the same time he felt like he could be doing more elsewhere. That he could be helping somewhere that really needed him. He missed feeling needed.

He didn’t exactly want to broadcast how ridiculous he felt over how his relationship with Ezri had imploded. He wanted his decision to be seen as a choice, rather than him running away. After his breakup with Ezri, nearly everyone on the station knew about it within a week. It didn’t help that he'd nearly become a recluse.

He heard from Nurse Jabara and the station gossip mill, Ezri was considering going Command track, and was studying with one of the newly arrived engineers who had started in Command but transferred to Operations after making Lieutenant. They still hadn’t talked, but he needed to if he was going to leave DS9 with no regrets.

Lunch with Kira, the infrequent afternoons she was free from arbitrating disagreements between Federation officials and Bajoran Senators, or arguing with the captain of a transiting Klingon ship expecting special treatment for some daring deed they did during the war, was a welcome respite from the loneliness that had seeped into every aspect of his life. He knew she wouldn’t pry, and he never talked to her about work unless she wanted to vent. Lunch with her was often silent and relaxing, if short. They both had a habit of eating quickly. After their meals he often had to banish echoes of a deep silken voice chiding him on Federation Impatience and the Insanity of a member of a post-scarcity society eating like they’re afraid of their meal being taken away. He noticed lately that Kira finished her meal first. 

He broached the topic one day as they were finishing eating. 

“Kira,” he started as he pushed his empty plate aside, “I’m going to apply for a new post. I wanted to let you know first. I thought it would be a good time, now that things have settled in peacetime. Less chaos for a new doctor to handle.”

He was prepared for some pushback. 

Kira set down her _kava_ juice and looked at him with understanding. 

“Julian, You don’t need my permission! Of course everyone on the station will be sad to see you go. I’ll be sad to see you go!” She laughed. “You’ve come a long way from that naive brat who showed up here eight years ago!”

Julian remembered that insufferable fool he’d been. A child spouting off fantasies made out of her nightmares. He was still surprised the Colonel hadn’t punched him back then. The sympathy in her eyes forced him to look down at his empty plate. He attempted to convince himself it wasn’t pity, that she still didn’t see that overeager puppy he used to be. Trampling over everyone and everything without a care to their feelings or experiences. He wanted to believe that someone who knew him all this time thought he had changed, even if he had trouble believing it himself since the war had ended.

“You’ve changed so much. You’ve done so much here! The station will be alright. You should be free to go do some good elsewhere. You deserve a fresh start.”

“Yes, a fresh start...”

The best parties at Jadzia’s. Lunch in the replimat with him. Playing darts with Miles at Quark’s in the evening. Dragging him to sports matches or impromptu concerts, despite his protests that the Cardassian version was better. Dinner with the Captain and his family. Exchanging favorite novels and films, wondering with amusement if he would hate all the parts Julian loved and love all the parts Julian hated. The station was so full of memories, he wanted to move forward, make new memories in new places. Leave the pain behind. 

He looked back up at Kira to find a warm smile on her face. She reached across the table to squeeze his hand with a comfortingly firm grip. He was glad she didn't try to fill the silence between them with any useless encouragements or offerings of sympathy.

“I’m relieved, the last thing I want to do is leave you without a doctor,” he said with a hollow laugh. “It will be good to start something new, I’m proud of what I've accomplished here, but after everything… I think I need a change.” 

After his lunch with Kira, back at Medical, he gathered his courage to finally settle things with Ezri. Before he could think too long about it he shot her a short message.

_Ezri, If you have time tonight would you be willing to meet me for dinner in the Replimat? I think it’s time we talk._

When he finally checked his messages at the end of his shift, he found she’d sent him a short response. 

_See you there._

She was already there, sitting at their old table, when he walked up a few hours later. He sat down without ordering any food, too anxious to get what he needed to say out. He noticed all she had in front of her was a cup of fragrant tea. She eyed him warily, most likely uneasy he might try and press his suit once again. 

“That smells good, what is it.” he said, wincing internally at his lame bid to break the awkward silence between them. 

She glanced down at her cup, obviously thrown off by his attempt at small talk.

“Oh, um, it’s Vulcan spice tea. Lieutenant T’Lara introduced it to me. She swears it helps with concentration, but I just like the taste.”

He nodded with polite interest, wishing he had at least gotten a glass of water, if only to have something to do with his hands. They sat in awkward silence for a few moments. Ezri looked around the replimat, squirming uncomfortably in their mutual bubble of lost intimacy. Just as she looked like she was about to break the silence, Julian jumped on the moment and blurted out what he came to say.

“I’m sorry! When I came to your quarters that night… I was completely misguided. I’m sorry I forced my feelings on you. Or, what I thought my feelings were at the time.”

Her initial reaction had been surprise, but quickly softened to a small smile. 

“I just wanted to get that all out, I didn't want to leave things between us like the last time we talked.”

Ezri let out a big sigh as a wide smile spread across her face.

“Julian, I’m so relieved. I admit I was a little worried.” she let out a small laugh before her face turned serious. “I should apologise too, I shouldn't have dumped everything on you at once and expect you to accept it right away. I’m sorry I hurt you then.”

Julian got a flash of that last meeting, tears streaming down Ezri’s face as she begged him to leave.

“I think we hurt each other enough. I was hoping, that is, if you’re willing, do you think there’s some way we could be friends again?” 

That big smile came back, as she said, “Of course! I would love to be friends again!” 

Julian saw her face falter a bit at the L-word, but he kept his face at a pleasant neutral. This meeting was about repairing bridges, healing his friendship with Ezri, not dwelling on the feelings of loneliness and abandonment that threatened to overwhelm him whenever his mind wasn’t occupied with a patient’s illness, or the trajectory of a racquetball, or some new peer reviewed paper about a medical breakthrough out of Andor. 

“I’m so relieved.” he said with a sufficiently deceptive smile on his face. “Now tell me, are the rumors true? You’re thinking of changing to the Command track? This Lieutenant T’Lara, is she the one who’s been helping you study for the transfer exam?”

Ezri blushed deeply, looking into the remains of her mug before launching into a glowing portrait of her new friend and tutor, catching him up with all that had changed in her life in the last few weeks.

~~~~

Julian had started to dread receiving any communications from Starfleet. The day after he made up with Ezri he contacted a Starfleet Medical detailer. He had served on Deep Space Nine for nearly eight years, he was eligible for a voluntary transfer if he wanted one. At the time he naively assumed it would be a quick process. Now, nearly six months later, he had made no headway. 

_Lt. Julian S. Bashir,_

_Your request of transfer to Starbase 854, Medical Research Division, Planet-side, on Belnes 4 to fill the vacancy of Research fellow (Lieutenant grade) has been denied due to the vacancy being filled._

_LtCm. Sylvia Rothschild-Yxxli_

_Assistant Personnel Manager - Medical Specialty_

_Office of Rear Admiral Rexis, Starfleet Medical_

The rejections were getting shorter too. The rejection letter for his first application, to the medical team on the _USS Barow_ , had been three times as long. Over the last six months he had applied to over a dozen different posts, from ships to colonies to research outposts. With each rejection letter, he lowered his expectations. Applied to posts with shorter and shorter lists of professional requirements and experience. 

It was his day off and he had decided to check his messages before he went to the gymnasium to play some racquetball. At his narrow desk next to the window-port, Julian leaned back in his chair, resting his head on the tall back. 

Last night they’d had a party in Quark’s, celebrating Ezri’s acceptance into a competitive Command training course on Earth. Kira, LT. T’lara, Quark, Jake, and even Nog, who’d had shore leave for a few days on the station, had all gathered to celebrate her success and wish her luck. He and Nog recommended packing warm clothes against the deceptively cold weather in San Francisco and Jake had gifted her his new novel, although everyone had gotten a copy of that. 

“I thought we’d have had your goodbye celebration long before hers,” Kira had mentioned off-hand as they watched Ezri hang on T’Lara’s shoulder, laughing at a joke Jake had told. The tall bronze woman looked down at her short friend with a cool even expression that on a Vulcan was downright soppy with affection. 

“Well, yes, I rather had as well.” was all he could say and then Nog rushed over to get him to listen to Jake’s joke as well. Julian was eager to follow the young ensign, relieved he hadn’t needed to continue that conversation with the Colonel. 

A chime from the console roused him from his memories. Another message from the dispatcher LtCm. Rothschild-Yxxli popped up in his inbox. With a glimmer of dread in his stomach, he noticed it lacked the official trimmings of her usual correspondence.

_Lt. Bashir_

_I’ve seen your transfer requests cross my desk for quite a few months. Seeing how you’re still persistent after all the rejections and close misses you’ve been troubled with, I brought up my concerns to Rear Admiral Rexis. After a few days of negotiation on their part, I'm happy to finally pass along some good news to you! Congratulations!_

Attached to her note were official orders from Starfleet Medical, along with a letter from her boss, Admiral Rexis. He skimmed past the salutation and read. 

_Due to your unique status among our medical officers, we know you best serve the Federation on Deep Space Nine. Your expertise with the unique history and culture of Bajor, as well as the diverse people transiting through the station, make you the best officer that could be watching over its medical demands. This permanent position will aid future relations between the Federation and Bajor._

The rest of the letter was more of the same, congratulations for such a prestigious post and all the good work he would do for the Federation and his profession. They couldn’t imagine offering him another post when he was so ideally suited to DS9. What an advantage he would have over his colleagues with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be uprooted to serve on a ship or starbase where his talents and knowledge would be wasted.

Julian had the distinct sensation of being at the bottom of a well, water rising to choke and freeze, the opening above him a small circle of sky, so far away he’d never be able to escape. He focused on taking deep breaths, trying to calm the panic that rose in his chest. Leaning forward to put his head between his legs helped a little, he could see his hands shaking as he tried to make sense of what he had just read.

How had he been so monumentally stupid?

He had really thought that because his father had conceded to a measly two years in a minimum security prison that all had been forgiven? That Starfleet Command was happy to have him, a genetic augment, among them? For over three years, he’d actually thought the other shoe had dropped. That he could finally let go of the fear and secrets he had lived with since he was 15. That he’d really been accepted. 

But here he was, being told in so many words: “ _Mind, Augment. You are here through our permission, now be grateful with what we allow you to have._

_“A person like you with ambition? No, we can’t have that._

_“Dangerous. Unpredictable._

_“Stay on your station, out of the way, where you can’t flaunt your shame for all of us to see.”_

Julian was shocked. He thought he might actually be sick. He kept his head between his legs until the nausea passed. 

_Maybe I read it wrong, I had to have read it wrong!_

But he read it again, and there it was laid out. 

Lieutenant Julian Subatoi Bashir, 

Chief Medical Officer Deep Space Nine, 

Transfer Eligibility: Ineligible

Date eligible for transfer: Transfer eligibility date to be determined.

A small part of him was trying to worm logic into his whirling thoughts. DS9 was home. Yes, lots of people had left, but there were always new friends to make. Bajor was still recovering, there was so much he could do for her people. 

_You’ll still have your commission, you’ll still be in Starfleet!_

With that small whimpering thought, righteous anger flared up, burning away all the dread and nauseous despair coiled in his stomach. Starfleet! How could he stay in an organization that held such contempt for him, thinking he would jump for joy over this gracious concession they were allowing him to have? How could he stay in a system that was so frightened of what he might become, they as good as put him under house arrest?

He would fight it, he decided. He had to. As much as DS9 had been his home, a cage was still a cage. He knew he could forget about new beginnings and opportunities if he didn’t stand up for himself. 

Fire burning in his belly, he activated his dormant console to write a protest to his new posting and orders. But when he activated the screen he saw a third message from the office of Rear Admiral Rexis, Starfleet Medical. 

_Dr. Bashir_

_Congratulations with your new appointment. This is a courtesy message in recognition of all the good work you’ve done over the years as an accomplished Medical Doctor and Starfleet Officer. I look forward to the further accomplishments you will achieve in the future._

_Rear Admiral Wayn R. Rexis_

_Personnel Management Director - Medical Division_

_Starfleet Medical_

Attached were orders and a personnel dossier for a Lieutenant Commander Vahsi Allaka. She was a pretty woman with that easy smile Bolians so often seemed to wear. She’d been in Starfleet for 15 years and a doctor for five and she had distinguished herself as the CMO of the _USS Barthoz_ during the war. As he read on, Julian fought to stay in the moment, as much as it hurt, to not sink into the numb fog that promised he could just _go away_ . She was very talented, he noted, struggling to keep the screen in focus. Before the _Barthoz_ , she had been stationed on Starbase 87, researching Peklar’s Syndrome, a genetic disorder that affected bone development in Vulcans and Romulans. Deep Space Nine would be lucky to have her.

 _I really am_ _naïve_ , he thought after he closed her file and sent off a polite thank you to Admiral Rexis and LtCm Rothschild-Yxxli. 

He knew there would be no fighting this, he would rot here. He could see it all so clearly. His new “duties” would keep him too busy, Dr. Allaka would take over the day to day duties of running Medical. Maybe he might still be CMO on paper for the station, but there was no doubt in his mind that they would let him practice medicine in any meaningful capacity. He imagined they would probably encourage him to do more research, work on puzzles and problems that had plagued whole teams of doctors and researchers at Starfleet Medical. He would contribute his mind, the only useful thing he had to offer in their thinking, but he would be kept quiet and contained, with a handy prison guard in the guise of a smiling colleague to help “lighten his load.”

Julian stared out the window-port, not feeling anything in particular. His mind was silent, his body felt empty. He sat there for 2 hours and 47 minutes. Thanks to the “gifts” his parents had forced on him, he couldn’t even disconnect from reality properly. He waited for the anger, sadness, loneliness, fear, and hatred to bubble up, but he found he just couldn’t care. 

Among the stars outside his window, beyond the outer pylons of the station, a blocky freighter drifted away on impulse power, making its way to the required distance from the station to initiate warp. A starburst of light and it was gone, off to some distant planet, free. 

A sharp ache flared near the vicinity of his heart.

“I’m tired.” he whispered to the empty room and waited for his tears to dry.

Julian made his way through the promenade towards the docking bay, feeling more alone than he ever had in his entire life. He was loaded down with all his worldly possessions: a duffel bag, backpack, and a satchel strapped to his body. He’d resigned his commission a month earlier, about two weeks after Dr. Allaka had arrived on station. 

When they met, he wanted to hate her, for the role she was playing in Starfleet’s cowardice, but she had been so kind and friendly, sympathetic to the untenable position he had found himself in. The suffocating hole Starfleet was determined to keep him in. Before he made his decision, they’d had a number of discussions about it. She was surprisingly insightful and understanding about his predicament. After her first post on a nearly forgotten research outpost on the tiny lone moon of Andoria VII studying the anaerobic bacteria that colonized underground, she seriously considered leaving the service. Over synthale and Bolian cream wine, she admitted her struggles as a young Ensign dreaming of adventure and saving lives were very different from the struggles of an unwilling augment who had done nothing but prove himself loyal and trustworthy now being punished for simply existing.

“Julian, as I see it, they’ve shown how far they’re willing to go.” Within ten minutes of meeting him, Vahsi insisted on first names with a bright wide smile and a firm pat on his shoulder. They were in Quark’s that evening, on the upper mezzanine, enjoying their drinks, with a good vantage of the vibrant patrons below. 

“Now stop me, please, if I’m overstepping, but you have a decision to make. Can you live within the parameters they’ve laid out for you? Knowing that even if you are eventually able to change their minds it could take years, with little hope for success?” 

She didn’t have to mention how much humans feared, and even hatred, genetically altered people, far more than nearly any other member of the Federation. The shame and guilt of playing God and almost killing their entire species was a burden every generation was taught to keep. She took a long thoughtful draught of her creamy grey-blue drink and fixed him with her steady honey-brown eyes.

“Or do you grieve for a future that’s already dead, and start anew, among people who might appreciate your goals and dreams?”

That evening after he retired to his quarters, Julian’s thoughts wouldn’t let him fall asleep. Since he was 10 all he wanted to be was a doctor. He wanted to be the best doctor in the galaxy, and everyone knew joining Starfleet was the best way to do that. He realized staring at the ceiling, drifting through time and space within his memories, that almost since he decided on his dream, he’d equated being a doctor with being in Starfleet. The two were so intertwined it was hard to pull them apart. 

He knew he could accept Admiral Rexis’ offer to stay. He would still technically be a doctor, and while he may not be able to practice actively, the research would be rewarding. But the research had always come second to him. Helping people was at the core of why he loved being a doctor. Healing people, giving them a future without pain or suffering, that’s what Starfleet would be taking away from him. And the more he thought about that, the clearer his decision had been.

Julian tendered his resignation three days after that. A month of helping Vahsi settle in, and networking with Colonel Kira, and surprisingly, Quark, he managed to find a position as a surgeon for a small Maquis settlement in the badlands. 

As he passed Medical on his way to the transport ship, Vahsi happened to catch his eye. She grinned and rushed over to give him as tight a hug as she could with all the bags hanging off him. Julian didn’t think he’d met anyone who was quite so physical in their affection. Even though they’d only known each other for around 6 weeks, he was surprised how much he would miss her.

She fussed over his clothes, reminding him again just how cold the Colonel had warned her Townsend Colony could get. He laughed it off and gave her a copy of the Alamo holosuite program he had played so much with Miles. He’d brought it up over one of their happier evening exchanges of misery and memories. A final hug with a warm reminder to write, and he continued through the promenade.

He passed by Garak’s shop on his way to the entrance of the docking bay used by the nearly daily transport ships. He still thought of the shop as Garak’s, even though after being empty for almost a year, it had been bought by an older Bajoran couple who sold potted plants, cut flowers, and decorative aquatic greenery. It had been dark and empty for so long, that when he started to see the lights on in the shop again, filling with beautiful living things, he had been horribly angry. 

The cold dark empty hole in the bright and cheerful parade of shops along the promenade had been like a totem for him. As much as it hurt to see, it gave a small part of him hope. The rent was paid through the year, there was a slim chance Garak might come back one day, if only to settle his accounts and return back to Cardassia. As improbable a hope it was, Julian held onto the idea there was still a chance he might be able to see him again. If only to apologize for that day, to say goodbye properly, without those bitter sharp feelings that churned his stomach till he felt sick with them. But nearly 6 months ago he’d seen the lights go up and the shop start to fill with delicate green _tora_ ferns, emitting their gentle lemon and lavender like scent, bright cheerful red _ruti_ lilies with their electric blue stamens, and little aquariums with puffy jelly-like _geela_ fronds, that gave off a gentle purple glow he could see through the darkened shop windows at night when he passed by on his way home after a long shift. 

He’d been angry, and frustrated with himself over the anger. Nela Kreta and Prenem were such a nice and friendly couple, he had no reason to be angry with them. Garak was gone and he wasn’t coming back. Julian had known that since Damar and his resistance had succeeded. Garak’s dream had finally been realized, he was home, he was free of Deep Space Nine and all the harm it had done to him. Julian was happy for him, he was. 

This time, as he passed by, he didn’t see Mr. Nela spraying water mist over a cascade display of waxy green Earth philodendrons and fuzzy purple Bajoran _roshla_ plants, their broad leaves as soft as cashmere. He saw a solidly built middle aged Cardassian man fussing over displays of shimmering cloth and elegant women’s dresses. He saw him listening with a brittle polite mask to an old Terran woman dripping in jewels and silk explaining that her evening gown simply had to be fixed in two hours, and no, she would not dream of paying extra! Garak had repaired her dress, but as he disclosed the next day at lunch with a certain amount of glee that still made Julian smile, he had laid the seeds of more than a few doubts concerning her wife’s faithfulness after he’d been forced to listen to her drone on about it during the initial fitting. He saw Garak walking out of his shop to catch him on his way home, returning a book Julian had lent him, a cheerful “Doctor, I'm so glad I caught you!” and a gentle friendly touch on his arm. He saw Garak lost in his work, bent over a particularly intricate piece of embroidery, late at night, illuminated by a single light, long after the Promenade had emptied of patrons. His brow furrowed in concentration, the rest of the station gone from his perception. 

He realized he had been lost in thought, staring too long, when Mrs. Nela spotted him as she put out a sign advertising red and green saltwater _boola_ reeds were 30% off for the next week. She gave him a friendly wave that he returned before continuing on. 

Walking through the promenade the rest of the way, memories of his old friend resurfaced, an overwhelming sense of homesickness welled up inside him. Lunch with Garak, debating their favorite works again and again. The appallingly few times they had visited each other's quarters, brief drinks and stilted conversation. Those rare intimate explosions that never seemed to bring them as close together as they should. Garak sick from the wire, finally brushing aside that veil between them, if only for a moment. Lying to his father while accepting his death confession, Julian humbled by the gift. His bravery in the face of such a devastating phobia, Julian remembered how angry and proud he had been. But after all that, they had always pulled away from each other, and in the end it was no different. 

Nearly all of his colleagues had moved on, left the station behind, and now here he was about to start the same journey, although not on the terms he would have liked. That heart wrenching feeling of wanting to _go back_ , just for a day, even an hour would be enough, he had to fight tears. 

_Come now Doctor, where’s that tireless Federation Optimism?_ A smooth low voice crooned dripping with sarcasm. That familiar voice echoed in his mind as he boarded the transport, determined to make the best of his life outside of Starfleet, who would not have him unless they could control him. The homesickness rose to a crescendo as the station got smaller and smaller before it disappeared entirely as the transport ship entered warp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! I am thrilled by Kudos and comments alike. They are equally exciting!  
> Just a minor warning, I intend for it to be a long story, but I don't anticipate being able to update more often than once a month.  
> The next chapter will be Garak readjusting to life on Post-War Cardassia, with moderate to heavy tie ins to Andrew Robinson's excellent "A Stitch In Time," which I highly recommend if you are a fan of everyone's favorite ex-spy, Elim Garak!


	2. Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to lighthouse_at_sea for Beta reading this chapter for me. They really helped me out a lot.  
> I hope you all enjoy this Garak-focused chapter, it starts right at the tail end of "What You Leave Behind"

The Doctor had trouble meeting his eyes, and with the quiet desperation of a dying man pleading for one more minute of life he said,  “I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”

Part of him was glad his lessons in cynicism hadn’t stuck with the younger man. Garak would never admit it, but the Doctor’s eternal optimism had often been a source of comfort during the war. 

Garak matched his wan smile, and struggled to keep his tone light. 

“I’d like to think so, but one can never say. We live in uncertain times.”

He walked out of the room, leaving the Doctor and his old life behind him. Even in the end he couldn’t crush his friend’s hope. They both knew this was the last they’d see of each other, even if the Doctor couldn’t admit it to himself. The Doctor’s clumsy reassurances tapped into an indulgent morose corner of Garak’s heart.

He wanted to wallow in that hard cold certainty that Cardassia was dead. He didn’t want Doctor Bashir’s regretful sympathy or fervent assurances that everything would be alright _. _

Garak had done everything in his power to protect her but the planet and the people he had been taught to serve and revere his entire life were gone. Yes, the planet would recover, the population would grow, but the culture and society of his youth, the places and people he’d dreamed of returning to for seven long years, they were all gone. Vanished into mist among the bones of a lost Cardassia.

In one of their early literature exchanges, the Doctor lent him a collection of myths from an ancient Earth civilization. He claimed they were responsible for the building blocks of much of Human thought: medicine, law, philosophy. After reading the short volume, Garak had been shocked that such silly stories could be the basis of an entire civilization. Walking through the corridors of the abandoned Dominion complex, Garak recalled the tale of Orpheus. 

A man so full of grief, he used his talents to bargain for his love, who had been stolen away from him. He succeeded and would regain the crown of his heart if he could follow one edict. So easy to follow, so simple. All he had to do was leave without looking back. 

That was all. 

Garak remembered how foolish the story had seemed, in the end the young man lacked commitment. He had told the Doctor as much at lunch. Doctor Bashir had blustered and protested, claiming it was a story about trust and faith. Garak played up his take on the story, amplifying his dismissal of Orpheus’ decisions to get a rise out of the Doctor, for his own amusement to be sure, but he’d genuinely disliked the myth. 

At the time, he had added it to the growing list of human failings he’d catalogued since the Federation took control of the station. Evidence to their inherent inconstant nature, that they would hold onto a hero who embodied such faults. 

As Garak stepped out of the complex, he felt like Orpheus at the mouth of the cave. The main street was littered with rubble, damaged barricades, and one smoking tri-wheel crashed on its side. Among the wreckage of the city, the ashes of his past, he found some sympathy with that young grieving fool. So lost, so consumed by his grief, the chance of success seemed like a cruel joke. Turning back in certain despair, only to see his love vanish into mist, just one step away from safety. 

The cruel irony. 

In the past months, Cardassia had seemed so close. Decoding the transmissions had felt like betrayal every time, but there had been a small part of him that felt like each one took him a step closer to reclaiming his home. Clinging to that old worn dream had seemed like the only thing keeping him sane, as much as it taunted him. Now here he was, left with her corpse, only bones and memories to comfort him. 

A broken land, with a broken people. 

He knew he was wallowing. A voice that sounded like Tain lectured he should focus on the practical, the salvageable; sentiment and emotions would serve no purpose to fix what was broken. But walking among the destruction of the city that had once been his home, knowing the sheer number of lives that had been lost for nothing at all, he thought he was allowed to indulge in his emotions for at least a little while. 

The central streets of Tarlak sector were quiet. Damar’s resistance force, organized over the last few weeks, had spread out into the city spreading news of the Dominon’s defeat. The further away from the Dominion complex he walked, more and more people roamed the streets. It was strange after so many years on that lonely, icy station to see so many gray scaled and ridged faces. After months of helping Colonel Kira, Damar, and his rebel troops overthrow the Dominion, he thought he had gotten used to being surrounded by Cardassian faces again, but here on the streets of Cardassia City there was more variety than well fed military personnel. He saw dirty thin faces that passed him swiftly on the street, anger and determination seemed to fuel their journeys. Hungry frightened faces marked his passage from shrouded doorways. Occasionally, the face of joy, sparkling and sharp, shouted “They won! Damar won!” 

He angled north, through the alleys and streets he, Damar, and the Colonel had traversed, navigating his way back to the house they had left late the night before.

_ Only last night? It feels like it was centuries ago… _

Closer to Paldar sector the streets started to incline and he found himself puffing a bit. After years of station living it would take him a bit to get used to the slightly higher gravity on Cardassia Prime again. In the distance to the southwest, what must be Akleen Sector, he felt more than heard the low shockwave of a bomb go off, he imagined he could hear shouting and phaser fire between people who hadn’t heard of the Dominion’s surrender yet, but it was much too far to really be hearing such things. The further he got from the city center, the destruction was more chaotic, less targeted. Streets that had been clear only hours earlier, were now littered with debris. More than once he had to backtrack to find an alley or alternate route. And it wasn’t all sterile rubble. He avoided looking too closely at the freshly collapsed buildings, trying to remember that most residents from Peldar sector were bureaucrats and civil servants. Practical people who would have fled the city for the relative safety of the countryside, or at the very least the outskirts. Occasionally the distant shockwave of an explosive would echo through his feet, but he didn’t stop. 

He crossed into Paldar sector near twilight. The fiery pink sun’s rays deepened into scarlet and raw sienna, painting the destruction around him in shades of red and orange. He passed a small group, an old man in torn clothes supporting a boy with his arm in a sling and a scarf wrapped around his head and tear tracks staining his face. A woman about his age followed close behind, blindly murmuring reassurances to the small child she clutched in her arms. They raced past him down the hill, and he trudged on. A thin old man with crystal white hair sat among the ruins of his house next to a fallen section of wall, his face hidden by his hands as an otherworldly wail spun out of him to wind through the streets. It followed Garak as he continued through the wide open boulevards and narrow alleys. He passed a fire that had once been one of the oldest and most beautiful houses in the sector. It had been a cultural heritage site. His uncle Tolan had taken him on a tour of it when he was in primary school. Now it was just a few charred support beams, the fallen walls and roof feeding a bonfire at the center. The heat was incredible and as night fell, the glow became a landmark of his progress through the old labyrinthine sector. 

It was fully dark by the time he made it back to his father’s house. 

Or what was left of his father’s house. 

Rounding the final corner to emerge on the wide street, he could tell that his father’s house had not been spared from the final bombs of the war. The outer walls were much as they left them this morning, a large meter wide section had been knocked down and one half of the double iron gate was gone, taken completely off the hinges. He’d never gotten around to asking Mila what had happened. These past weeks they’d all been so focused on the task ahead, on their purpose, it hadn’t even entered into his mind to ask why half of the main gate and a large section of the outer compound walls had been destroyed. 

He took a tentative step into the rubble of the house, listening and feeling for the tell tale vibrations that would indicate the floor giving way to the basement below, but it had been an ancestral home, built to last, and the floor was silent. As much destruction and grief he’d passed on his way here, the district was quiet. His father’s house was deep within the sector and the chaos of those further south was too far away to reach. But Garak felt chaotic, the more he took in the house, and the grounds, the little that remained. 

What was left of them. 

Since he was around 6 he’d found little comfort in this place, and that had mostly been found with his uncle, Tolan. But last night, he’d seen his mother smile as she handed him a plate of food, and he’d seen her corpse fall down the stairs to land at his feet. The pain and happiness of the life this place had given him, it seemed like every place he stayed for too long was full of both. 

The angry grimaces from Bajoran and Federation alike, open happy smiles from Doctor Bashir and Ziyal. His uncle’s calm and steady presence beside him as they tended the kitchen garden, or the flower beds throughout Tarlak sector. His father’s eternal stern indifference, no matter what he achieved. He walked up to where the door to the basement had been, now a dense pile of stone, masonry, and metal. He knew exactly what he would find beneath.

She’d been alone for four years, alone in what had been a palatial house. 

Hiding in the basement, planning their strategies, the daily sight of his mother had been bittersweet. Old habits hid their parental relationship from Damar and the Colonel, but she communicated her delight in having him near and home, regardless of the circumstance. She only served the three of them his favorite foods, he always got the thickest blanket, she scolded them for being reckless or impatient like when he was a child, and the ring of three knots she left on his pallet the day after the three of them had taken refuge in that basement. It was their little message they devised when he was small that meant,  _ I missed you, _ and, _ I'm so glad you’re safe and home _ , and,  _ I love you _ . 

A lifetime of Mila Garak flowed through his consciousness. All the content happiness of childhood. All the bitter anger when nothing he did ever seemed good enough. All the confusion and hurt when she chose his father over him again and again. All the complicated murky love of a child who strived his entire life to fit into the purpose his parents ordained. Shaped to be a loyal tool of the state, a role he had broken himself to fit into with virtually no recognition or praise from his architects. And now standing atop the tomb of his mother, as old as he was, feeling a broken hollowed out man in the impossible task ahead of him and his people, all he really wanted was to be 4 again, when a hug from his Mother was enough to make all right in the world. He wanted his mother to smile at him and scold him. He wanted his mother, but like so many others that day, he was all alone, with no one. 

  


The next nineday week he didn’t leave his father’s partially walled compound. The grounds were smaller than a similarly grand house one might find in the older, neighboring, Coranum sector, but there had still been enough room for the main house, cramped underservant dorms, a small cottage for the housekeeper, and a kitchen garden when it had been built by his great-great-grandfather. 

The underservant dorms had been demolished long before he’d been born, but their foundations were still intact decades later. They had served as the stage to an ornate sculpture garden his late grandmother curated with a devotion bordering on mania in her later years, clinging to the lost status of her youth. Now the intricate patterns of tile laid into the ground were cracked and displaced, mixed with split limestone and twisted metal slag that had once been intricate works of art. 

The main house was smoking rubble, both floors completely collapsed, but it could wait, its ghosts could wait for him to be ready. 

The housekeeper’s cottage, the house he had grown up in, was tucked away behind the main house, close to the northeast corner, behind the kitchen garden. It was nearly unharmed, if one only looked at the half facing the main house. The back half, along with the part of the wall it abutted, was destroyed. 

Beyond the wall was public land, free for use by any. When Garak was a child it had been an informal park, families would go enjoy the sunning rocks, children would ride hounds or chase each other, and old men would play Kotra on tables set up around the edges of the rusty lichen ground cover. Now he could see someone, perhaps the sector officials, had torn up the earth to farm the land, but they had planted far too early. This early in the growing season nothing would grow all that well. Winter rains were too far away, and public water access was limited in this part of the city for something of this scale to really be feasible. The few sprouts that had managed to push through were dry and dying. Whoever had prepared the land had piled the rocks, dug up in plowing, on and around the old sunning rocks, blocking their use. Garak saw poor planning and inefficient organization in those fields, nothing new from what he’d heard from civilians who attended Damar’s secret resistance meetings these past weeks. 

The cottage was salvageable. It was a small cramped structure, with the rounded sunken architecture associated with the serving class. The rooms at the front of the house, the kitchen and the communal gathering room had survived. When he first opened the front door, he was shocked how pristine this part of the house was. If he couldn’t see the rubble and open withered fields through the remains of the central hallway, he would have thought the house was untouched. Beyond, the family bedroom and bathing room, with its luxurious deep tub, were flattened by the portion of the outer wall that had fallen on it. 

All Garak needed to do to have perfectly serviceable shelter was block off the hole that had once been the central hallway. Never mind when he spent any more time than what was necessary inside, his memory summoned his mother cooking and grumbling in the kitchen and his uncle puttering over delicate seedlings in the common room. Never mind that he imagined he could hear her walking from the main house, feet scraping on the gravel walk outside, or that when looked over the remains of the kitchen garden, he could hear his uncle telling him what would be best to plant and when. 

Over the next few days he patched up the cottage and started to till the kitchen garden, dragging away sections of outer wall and salvaging tools and supplies from the remains of his Uncle’s crushed shed. The memories got quieter and rarer as he became familiar again with his home and his planet. Smoke clogged the air as fires burnt their way through sections of the city, the autumn winds added dust and ozone to clog his nose, mouth, and so’c. The unfamiliar heat made him sweat, ruining his clothes. It wasn’t long before he was scouring the remains of the cottage for his uncle’s old clothes just so he could feel marginally clean again. Unpleasant gritty dust baths helped to clear the itchy crystalized minerals from the salt glands on his sides, but he found himself thinking of the cramped tub he had on Deep Space Nine with longing and guilt more than once. He welcomed the discomfort, it felt like the penance he’d told Dr. Bashir his people deserved. 

  


A few nights after Damar’s victory, he lay wrapped up in all the blankets he could find in what was left of the cottage. An autumn lighting storm rolled through the city, stirring up more dust, lighting new fires. The grit, the smoke and the wind made it nearly impossible to sleep. 

Cardassians didn’t believe in ghosts, at least not in the way Humans did. Old Hebetian legends told of heroes and Queens being led by the voices of their ancestors echoing in their minds, or the shadow of a loved one still living providing the last clue or insight that brings the hero to an epiphany that secures their victory, but nothing as fantastic as a ghost. In that big empty room in the only structure standing in his father’s compound, Garak imagined he wasn’t all alone in the dark as the wind whipped and whistled outside like a starving beast. 

He imagined his uncle’s large sleeping form next to him in the family bed from his childhood, the immobile mountain as he had seemed when Garak was a child. Solid and reassuring, radiating warmth and gentle snores, heavy arm thrown over tiny Elim. And his mother next to him, soft and comforting, hugs and gentle lullabies ready to lull a little boy off to sleep, warm and safe from all ills. In the darkness, listening to the wind whistle through broken stone and the distant crack and roll of thunder, the occasional flashes of lightning casting the room in stark light and shadow for a moment, he wanted them as fiercely as he did after he turned five years old and didn’t understand why he had to sleep alone. Didn’t understand why he had to take walks with Uncle Enabran and remember so many things. Didn’t understand why no one would let him out of the tiny little room with the walls that were too close and it was so dark and he couldn’t breathe!

Suddenly that large common room didn’t seem so big and empty. In the dark lightning punctuated room Garak wrestled with the blankets of his nest as he tried to control his breathing. But these past few days and weeks had worn him down. The dominion had been defeated, his mother was dead, Dr. Bashir was safe back on that cursed station he would never step foot on again, and he was once again alone. Struggling free, he stumbled out the front door of the cottage, closing his eyes to the stinging dust and grit that whipped around him. His hair and loose sleep tunic were tugged and pulled, he could see flashes of light from the lightning again and again. The debris in the storm stung his face and caught on his clothes. Free from that confining room, the waning panic pulled out something darker. 

It welled up in him, all of the emotions, all the hurt and fear and despair, the loneliness and bitterness, it felt like it was all going to rip him open if he didn’t let them out. 

He yelled until he was horse, he yelled until his mouth was full of dirt and dust, it felt like he yelled for hours. When he was done the storm was starting to weaken, like his own outburst of raw emotion had calmed the storm outside him as well. He felt hollowed out, a catharsis he hadn’t allowed himself to have in his nearly 50 years of life. As much as he loved his mother, loved his uncle, craved his father’s approval and pride, they hadn’t fulfilled their promises. The promises he’d been taught in school, by society of what family was supposed to be. 

He sat outside the cottage he’d grown up in as dawn slowly crawled over the horizon, casting the rubble and walls with soft red and orange light, brightening to pink and peach. 

He had finally come home, literally and figuratively. It was nothing like he’d imagined, it was beyond even his most cynical expectations, lightyears away from those quiet hopes he’d told Colonel Kira in his father’s basement over the body of his mother. But the fact was he was here, and despite the pain, despite the loneliness and despair that clung on like old companions, he found, squinting into the morning light and strewn debris of the night storm, he was ready to forge himself anew. Whatever it took, he would make things work here.

~~~~

Garak joined one of the many teams scouring the wreckage of the sector in the days after his catharsis. He wanted to integrate himself with the people around him, like he had on the station, like he had on nearly every assignment for the Obsidian Order. On the nights he didn’t immediately pass out from exhaustion he asked himself if he would get close to anyone again, rather than just be a useful tool. 

He wondered if he could do it again, if he could bear it again. Nearly every night like this his last conscious thoughts were of warm hands, soft verdant eyes, and his name rendered in an affectionately exasperated groan.

Garak met Doctor Kelas Parmak again during his first nineday of volunteering for burial duty. Nearly all of the able bodied adults in Paldar Sector were volunteering in some capacity, helping to clear away the destruction of their part of the city. There were excavation teams clearing away the rubble and advising on the structural integrity of buildings, burial teams collecting the bodies and taking them away to be given last rites, and medical teams for the increasingly rare survivors found trapped in the remains of their houses, or shocked into catatonic states among the rubble, unable to care for themselves.

The day he met the Doctor again, Garak’s team was assigned to the site of a boarding house. It had avoided the fires from the surrounding buildings, but a bomb from the end of the orbital bombardment had collapsed the entire side of the tall building, clogging the alley next to it with large boulders, twisted metal, and broken glass. The stairs were mixed in that rubble, eliminating the only escape route for those on the upper levels. While the excavation and medical teams coordinated to climb up and search those levels, his was below, laying the bodies out in neat rows, collecting identifying items and descriptions for each before loading them onto heavy skimmer trucks and flatbed triwheels that took them to the grimly named Community Mourning Center. Garak was usually urged by the younger members of his team to take over the record keeping, his back and knees were grateful, but that day was different. 

A particularly bad nightmare the night before had made his guilt and shame difficult beasts to handle. He had been back on DS9, decoding Cardassian transmissions for the Federation. Every time he finished a coded message his tablet turned into a knife that guided his hand against his will. Each blade sliding into the breast of a Cardassian with smooth surety. When he finally wrenched himself awake, he realized the people he had been killing were the same his team found in the rubble day after day. This morning on site, exhausted from only getting two hours of sleep and crying on and off the rest of the night, he dove into the grim task of moving bodies.

He recognized the Doctor right away. They came eye to eye when Garak rushed over to the aid tent carrying a five year old boy with a broken leg and multiple scrapes the excavation team had found sheltering in a pocket in the debris. The Doctor was much thinner than the last time Garak had seen him, scales and skin stretched tightly over his bones, not much fat to spare. His hair was now mostly white, rather than salt and pepper. His eyes, they were the same as Garak remembered. A warm soft blue, like the waves on some tropical isle, open and trusting, with a laugh waiting in them.

Garak handed over the child as gently as he could, trying not to jostle him, even though the boy was too weak to cry any more. The Doctor thanked him before turning all his attention to his new patient and calling out orders to his nurse. Garak managed to keep his public mask up even as guilt and fear threatened to turn his stomach. As the day wore on, he supposed it had been naive to think he would have had any warning before meeting people from his past. He no longer had the extensive network of information he’d had in the Order to rely on or even his meticulously curated web of informants from his time on the station. Even here, he’d begun the tentative first steps, ingratiating himself as a useful benign presence. He didn’t want to examine those roiling feelings that made his heart race till he felt dizzy and his breath to rasp painfully against the bandanna protecting his mouth and nose from the dust and smoke still choking the city. 

He avoided the aid tent for the rest of the day, keeping an ear out for any whispers or gossip among the workers about him or Obsidian Order spies. By sunset, when they stopped for the day, he thought he had escaped recognition. After the usual closing speech from the site leader, thanking them for their hard work and the plans for the next day, he joined his fellow volunteers to trickle out into the sector back to their respective homes and shelters. This is when the Doctor caught up to him, when he was too exhausted. Exhausted from hauling broken bodies and broken lives, exhausted from guarding his emotions all day long, and exhausted from keeping his polite, helpful, good citizen mask in place every day. Dr. Parmak appeared next to him, as if he had materialized out of the billowing clouds of dust that drifted through the city, surprising Garak more than he would like to admit.

“Mister Garak! Let me walk with you. I believe you brought us that little boy this morning? He had a broken leg.” Dr. Parmak asked as they continued walking down the wide main road side by side.

“Yes, that was me. How is the poor boy? Did you need help finding the boy’s family? The Community Mourning Center has exhaustive records of city residents, and I'm sure records of other provinces would be simple to obtain.”

“No, no, nothing like that! Thankfully one of his Aunts was working on one of the excavation teams and recognized him when she brought in another survivor. He’s very fortunate to still have her.” From the corner of his eye, Garak saw the Doctor’s gaze lengthen as he said this, seeing past the dusty road and broken buildings to somewhere deep in the past. Even a healthy and whole Cardassia was anything but kind to young orphans. Even adults with no family or connections found life difficult, resorting to the manufactured families found in boarding houses for social acceptance. 

Then the Doctor chuckled and said, “I was glad I only had a housekeeper to leave behind when you had me sent to the camps.” 

Icy lightning shot through Garak’s body, shocking him out of his exhausted stupor. He turned so sharply his heel slid on stray gravel, momentum knocking him off balance. He would have fallen backwards into the street if the older man hadn’t grabbed his arm.

“Careful there! I’m not as young as I used to be! I don’t have the strength to keep both of us upright for long!”

Garak regained his balance to stand facing the man. His first instinct was to protest. The Doctor was mistaken. He had him confused for someone else. The Doctor’s face was lit with a bemused smile while fatigue lay like a blanket over him, weighing down his posture and expression. Garak didn’t see any malice, but his entire life had revolved around seeing behind the masks people wore. 

His life of exclusion and living on the fringes, and where had that gotten him? Exiled on an alien space station, full of people who despised him and only saw him as a tool to be used to achieve their goals. On this dusty, rubble-strewn avenue with a ghost from his past, Garak found he didn’t have the energy to dissemble. 

“I suppose it was too much to hope that you may not have recognised me.” Garak fixed his face forward, feeling as if he was facing the Chief Archon, standing trial for causing all the destruction around them. He resisted the urge to search for cracks in Doctor Parmak’s expression that would reveal a murderous intent, or check his stance for evidence of a concealed knife or laser scalpel. 

The older man looked at him with shock, before bursting into laughter, as if Garak had told the funniest joke he’d heard in ten years. It took him a full minute to compose himself, wiping tears from his eyes. 

“Not recognize you? You’ve become a comedian!” the Doctor shook his head, a smile on his face. “Really Garak, I don't think I could forget those piercing eyes of yours for the rest of my life. I‘m surprised you didn’t notice how shaken I was when you brought that boy in.”

They started walking again. The street was largely deserted this time of night, there were a few volunteers from the site a ways ahead of them, scattered and in groups, making their own ways back to their nighttime roosts. 

“If it makes you feel any better, I was just as shocked when I saw you. You were so altered, I imagined time might have been granted me the same camouflage.” Garak offered.

“It’s only been, what, 12 years? Not that long. Not to say you haven’t changed! I was watching you work today, you’re very considerate to your team, urging them to rest and work in shifts, I saw you give that woman with no lunch your ration portion. You should try directing a little of that consideration towards yourself. I’m surprised you were able to stand and walk after all that backbreaking labour you did today.”

“I needed the exercise, life on a space station offers little opportunity for fitness.” 

Dr. Parmak let out a dry chuckle and let the matter lie as they walked on. He stopped at an enclosed dark alley two intersections before Garak’s turn.

“I expect I’ll be seeing more of you Mister Garak.” the Doctor said with a wry smile “Good night.” 

The last Garak heard before the older man disappeared into the shadows was another chuckle echoing off the walls. 

  


As Dr. Parmak predicted, their respective teams were assigned to the same building sites nearly every day after their initial meeting. Whenever they shared a site, the Doctor would find Garak and his team to give kind words of encouragement or simply acknowledgement of the draining job the burial teams had. Garak avoided talking to Dr. Parmak beyond what was socially necessary, but every few times they saw each other, the Doctor also brought gifts. A spare crate of powdered rations to share with his team, a pouch of vitamins slipped into his pocket at the end of a trying workday with the skill Garak had only seen in the very best pickpockets. A spare pouch of water after Garak had been coughing all morning. That time he was sure it had been the Doctor’s own daily ration, but Garak didn’t protest beyond what was polite, he was still adjusting back to the Cardassian climate. 

After a nineday of these gestures, he found his suspicions only deepening. Garak couldn’t shake the feeling it all must be some sort of vector to revenge on Dr. Parmak’s part. In retaliation, Garak started matching the Doctor with his own gifts. A bouquet of goldscale, gleaned from the rusty park behind his father’s house. The summer-dried weed could be made into a tincture that was said to be good for the immune system. He brought sun hats he found buried in what used to be a closet in the main house. A half kilo of loka beans bartered through the fledgeling black market network in the city. A necessity manifested in response to the barely adequate relief provided by the skeleton remains of the State. 

The Doctor treated all of this as some sort of generosity competition. The day after Garak brought the goldscale, the Doctor brought tea sachets made from the medicinal plant for the entire worksite. A few days after the sun hats, he showed up with a large bag of work gloves to share with the excavation and burial teams. The day of the loka beans, their state-provided rations had been destroyed by voles the night before, and there was the Doctor with expired army rations of salt-bread, the perfect compliment to Garak’s contribution yet again. The whole worksite joked the two of them were like ancient Hebetian guardian spirits, ensuring the teams’ success with all their generosity and good fortune. 

Garak wasn’t one to acknowledge signs, but he did know when to cut his losses. Even if the doctor was planning something, Garak would be better prepared if he got to know the older man better. That day he sat next to the Doctor during the midday meal and offered to share his piece of salt-bread. The doctor hadn’t taken any of the bread, just as Garak had politely declined a portion of the loka beans. Garak asked after the boy who had broken his leg, “mended and living with his aunt and cousins,” and Dr. Parmak asked him about his garden, “furrows plowed, rocks piled, and seedlings started.” 

They started walking home together that night, usually gossiping about the volunteers they both knew, mapping out their speculations of romance and conflict. Within a nineday they were “Kelas” and “Elim” to each other. 

Their talks rarely ventured into the past, but when they did, Garak found details of his time on Deep Space Nine spilling out. His daily frustrations with the shop and the Federation, the difficulty of being the only Cardassian on a station full of Bajorans, the few bright sparks of pleasure he’d found. He never intended to say anything about it, but talking to the Doctor somehow made it all so easy. On his part, Dr. Parmak talked about the last eight years living as a “reformed criminal of the state.” His struggles to find work when he returned from the camps, the sting of rejection from people he thought were his friends. He didn’t talk about before, they both knew what had sent him there. It was a subject they studiously avoided.

Rains indicated winter was on her way and work for the volunteer teams became less regular. Most people in their sector had been accounted for according to city records. The structural work of demolishing bombed out buildings and hauling away wreckage had passed the triage stages of the chaos after Liberation day. Garak’s garden required more attention, as weeds sprouted as eagerly as his crops. The more delicate plants were still in the makeshift nursery he’d built in the common room next to his bed. With the extra time he started repairing the back of the cottage and the outer wall. The remains of the main house hung over him like a spectre. He had picked through it to find useful things for the living, but memories of those final days in the basement made it difficult to linger amongst the ruins even months later. 

  


This was the first time Kelas had visited. Garak had been to Kelas’ home a few times since they started walking home together. His home was in the oldest part of Paldar, near Coranum sector. It was built in an old traditional style, half buried underground to regulate temperature with sunning spots on the low angled roof. It had completely avoided bombardment, miraculously, and Garak was a little self conscious for his friend to see the mess he had been living in while Kelas’ own home was so tidy and comfortable.

They sat at a small folding table outside the front of the cottage with a good view of the kitchen garden. Garak poured them each a measure of strong  _ Abka _ liquor into two mismatched vessels, admiring the nearly invisible green hue suspended in the translucent liquid as the sweet perfume of the spirit diffused between them. Garak had found it two weeks ago in what had once been his father’s study, the ceramic jug miraculously unharmed among the corpses of its fellows. 

He placed his companion’s portion in front of him. Kelas covered his cup politely with the palm of his hand and held Garak’s eyes as they shared their first sip. The aching familiarity of the simple ritual filled him with bitter nostalgia, and a wave of reckless desperation compelled him to be uncharacteristically forward.

“Why don’t you hate me, Kelas?” He stared intently at his companion, who broke Garak’s gaze to look out at the deepening evening sky.

Kelas pondered his question, slowly turning the small chipped bowl of nearly clear  _ Abka _ liquor back and forth between his fingertips. 

“Hate…. Hate is too heavy.” Kelas looked back into Garak’s eyes with an intense focus, pinning the younger man in his seat. “Hate is too heavy, and I find I need my strength for more important things.”

Garak knew.

The things they saw all too often: bloody clothes, crushed limbs, wailing parents and children, tears of volunteers overcome with emotion. Garak had been one a few days ago, when they found a woman his mother’s age wedged in a door frame. She had died of dehydration and trauma shielding a chubby baby, who only started crying when the lights of the excavators and doctors passed over his eyes. He’d managed to hold himself together as they passed the baby over to medics and laid out the woman’s body, removing useful and identifying items from her pockets. Kelas had found him at the end of the day hiding in a nearby alley, trying to keep quiet. Garak winced at the memory. He’d lashed out, said such horrible things, but the next time they met the Doctor greeted him with a smile, no mention of his outburst.

That was Kelas. Since they met, Kelas was only ever calm and kind, easy and open. He said what he thought, no double meanings or half-truths, in his words or his actions. Garak expected such naive behavior from Humans, but from a Cardassian it put him on his highest guard. The only Cardassians he’d known to act like this usually tried to kill him. 

Now here across from Kelas, Garak wanted some clarity. He needed to know that this friendship was real and not some elaborate scheme to destroy the beginnings of the new life Garak had started to grow.

“When we met… again. You had to have felt some animosity towards me, towards what I did to you?”

Kelas sat up straighter, flexing his back and tilting his head forward in a light stretch. With a tired sigh he said, “I burned through all that at the camps, it has no use to me anymore.”

Garak leaned forward over the table, desperate to understand.

“But I was the author of your demise. Tain betrayed you, and I helped him. Gladly!” He felt sick how proud he had been to break the doctor. “You’re truly telling me that means nothing to you? That you wouldn’t wish the same fate on me now?”

A gentle chuckle escaped his guest.

“You are eager to be punished, aren’t you? Why do you think you need to atone for your past? Why? You aren’t the man who delighted in cracking me open in that room with only his eyes. He died somewhere in the 12 years since. Killed by you, I presume.” the doctor met his gaze. His warm aqua eyes were serious, but Garak could see a glimmer of amusement, a shared secret, in their depths. 

Iron tension froze his limbs in place. Memories caught the air in his lungs. Odo shaking in pain on Tain’s ship, the clever device trapping him in solid form. The fiery barbed hooks of disgust and shame ripping at his insides. 

Thinking with dread,  _ Was this what you missed when you thought about serving a greater purpose?  _

_ Is proving yourself to Father worth it?  _

_ When has he ever been satisfied?  _

Those old memories washed over him. Picking through the shame and regret, he found there was something he’d forgotten. 

Back on that ship with Odo, and now across a folding table with Kelas among the ruins of his father’s home, Garak remembered that he hadn’t been that man for a long time.

“No, I suppose you have a point. I’m not the same man I used to be.” 

  


They finished their drinks in silence, enjoying the vibrant sunset. Orange and pink melted into purple and indigo. As night fell they could see the city stretch below them through the hole in the outer wall. Sporadic points of light from bonfires and the few buildings with power mimicked the stars above and in the distance Garak could hear the faint rhythmic tones of a melody he didn’t recognize. The chill in the air was almost unpleasant, the winds tended to pick up in the evening this close to winter. He didn’t mind it, but after fetching Kelas a blanket, he supposed his years on the station had inured him to the cold.

The bottle was nearly empty when Garak invited Kelas to stay the night. He was curious and lonely. The last person he had been so comfortable simply sitting with had been left behind on the station. Kelas reminded Garak of him, his kindness, his willingness to listen without judgement, and his forgiveness. It was enough to make him think they might become something more than friends, that this time he might be brave. This time he might be reckless. 

Kelas regarded him with a warm smile.

“That’s very kind, Elim, but I live nearby.” He stood to leave and for a moment Garak thought that his older friend hadn’t understood, but just outside the halo of light cast by the camp lantern, Kelas turned back to face him. 

“And I don't think I would fit into that hole in your heart very well in any case.” He saw something in Garak’s expression to make him chuckle before he turned to disappear into the night. 

Like an afterimage, the tall lean form of another doctor shimmered in the darkness Kelas had disappeared into. The graceful long shadow walked with a loose impatience that Garak remembered seeing so often at lunchtime on the station. It moved to take Kelas’ place across from him and as it settled down, just so slightly tilted its head in a silent inquiry.

“I suppose I must be cast beyond the dunes if I’m seeing you, my dear doctor.” muttered Garak before he knocked back the remains of his  _ abka _ , feeling slightly dizzy from the light movement.

It was frustrating that Kelas was right. 

It would have been easier if the station had been nothing but misery and pain, like it had been in the beginning. Before  _ He _ arrived with his puppyish enthusiasm and endless kindness. Garak didn’t want to miss anything from his exile, but there he was, drunk, alone on Cardassia, and talking with the specter of one of the only people who had made his life bearable the last seven years.

“I would dearly like to show you my home, Doctor, I think you’d appreciate our efforts more than most.” 

He tipped his empty glass toward the hallucination across from him, a toast in the Human fashion.

“To moving forward.”

~~~~

As winter finally arrived, the lush rains helped his own kitchen garden flourish. Garak woke before dawn in his makeshift bedroll of salvaged fabric, leather, and State issued threadbare blankets. The nights were getting colder as winter wore on, some mornings he woke up thinking he was still on the station, its icy chill immobilizing him into aching stupor. For an awful moment he imagined that he would have to go to his shop and serve all those ungrateful people. He would have to smile and laugh at their bad jokes, just to be awarded the baseline of civility. 

Then he opened his eyes and saw the pale pink-washed walls, the late seedlings bundled away from the cold under their tarp, and his mother and uncle’s bookcases, their books miraculously unharmed.

This morning he wasn’t woken by bad dreams, instead it was the distinct muffled sounds of animals rooting around in his kitchen garden. This late in the season, he was on the watch for pests eating the new growth and buds. He knew his uncle had had trouble with  _ deklok _ s when Garak was younger, but had been able to handle them with fences and traps. The city was still recovering from such a terrible blow and the population of the smaller hardier cousins of the ubiquitous voles found in ships and space stations was taking every advantage. The scaly brown reptiles feasted on the now easily accessible stores from bombed out houses, abandoned gardens, and the too numerous corpses that seemed like they would never pull them all out. The telltale rough scratch marks and the noxious smell of their excreta were sure to discourage any volunteer team.

Practicality beat out the morose turn his mind had taken and he quickly dressed and went out to confront the beasts trying to eat his future meals. Exiting the house, other sounds that had been muffled became clearer. Along with the breathy angry hisses and occasional sharp high squeaks there there were large low sounds of movement. Pulling his only heavily patched jacket closer against the morning chill, he emerged from the cottage to get a full view of the kitchen garden. In the middle of his tidy rows of tiny rokassa bushes and  _ johbra _ root sprouts, the most beautiful riding hound he’d ever seen was having the time of her life chasing and killing dekloks. 

She tracked their scrabbling movement with a playful tilting of her head and twisting her neck and back, the pearly white armor-like scales shifting with her contortions in an effort to follow their erratic movement. Her long tail stretched behind her like a sail, causing small gusts of wind as it whipped back and forth in her efforts to keep her balance tracking all of the tiny treats that scrabbled beneath her sharp hoof-like claws. Bright wet blood painted her muzzle and forelegs in sharp contrast to her delicate coloring, but he could see no evidence of her previous kills among the rows of the garden. The riding hound pounced expertly, impaling one of the fat brown reptiles on her fore-claws. She sniffed it delicately before raising her head to scent the air with her long forked tongue, sensing her audience. 

Seeing Garak for the first time, she drew herself up to her full height, the top of her head just level with his chin. He could tell even from meters away. She eyed him carefully, taking him in with all of her senses, nostrils flaring to breath in his scent, tongue lapping at the air to fill in the gaps, small bright eyes doing their best. Her silky under-fur was the color of that drink Humans were so fond of at celebrations, champagne, and her small pale blue eyes glinted with intelligence. 

“Now where did you come from, you elegant young miss?” he asked from his vantage at the cottage entrance. In response to his question, she let out a low trilling whistle and a small dirty figure he hadn’t noticed crouched at the far end of the garden whipped around to look at him.

_ You’re soft, even here, do you even deserve to be back?  _ Tain’s voice dripped with aloof disdain in his mind. 

The child startled with a gasp at the sight of him and leapt to their feet.

“Kado!” they called out in a clear piping voice. The riding hound turned smoothly, her tail following like a water serpent behind her, and walked majestically to meet the rushing child halfway. They expertly mounted the tall hound even though her back was as high as the child’s shoulders. They glared at him from their perch, anger and frustration at being caught with more than a little bit of fear mixed in. 

In the brief moment they regarded each other, he was struck how much the pair resembled the pre-State masterwork “The Messenger.” One of his favorite books as a child was actually a souvenir booklet his uncle had bought as a young man before much of the art created before the formation of the Cardassian Union was censored during the Bajoran Occupation. It was filled with art plates. He could remember pouring over each one when he was very small, but among all the paintings, calligraphy, photographs, and prints, his favorite was “The Messenger.” The story behind the painting never failed to fill him with excitement. A young boy sent behind enemy lines on a last ditch mission to end a bloody conflict. His uncle told him no one expected him to succeed, but with his cunning and skill managed to stop the endless fighting. 

  


The child and hound looked just as determined and frightened as the boy in the painting did. They had a mission, whatever it may be, and they weren’t going to let him stop them.

Just like that the moment passed and they signaled the hound beneath them with a nudge from their knees and clicking their tongue. With smooth graceful bounds, the tall riding hound and her rider slipped out of the yard, into the street and away.

  


The child came every few days, usually in the morning. They were more careful to keep the hound quiet than the first time. They never took any crops, only the  _ dekloks _ , whose numbers they quickly decimated. Near the Moon Solstice, when the weather was becoming truly cold, even by station standards, he left a sweater and some of the early harvest roots in a tidy bundle in the spot he’d first seen the child. The bundle was gone when he rose to start his day and a few days later he found a small ceramic mug decorated in bright geometric patterns of yellow and purple. Over the season his garden grew bigger and more lush, they maintained their dead drop, exchanging gifts every few ninedays. 

One early morning he was woken up by a late winter storm, sudden curtains of rain that threatened to wash away his crops and late seedlings he’d only planted a few days before. He rushed out almost as soon as he’d woken up, only stopping to put on boots and a rain parka, more patches than parka, over his makeshift pajamas. He was soaked through before he’d gotten two meters from the door. The kitchen garden wasn’t large, but he needed to work quickly to mitigate the damage this sudden harsh rain could do. He’d only transplanted the delicate  _ batu _ nut seedlings a few days earlier, they would drown if he didn’t manage to cover them up. He pounded stakes and poles, tenting cloths and ragged tarps in a hope to shield the young sprouts, but it felt like a losing battle. Just as soon as he would get a section of tarp nailed down, a previous section would collapse, threatening to crush the sprouts beneath. Just as he was about to submit to the elements and sacrifice potentially three months of food to the elements, a high strong voice called out.

“Let me help,  _ Kriva _ !”

The child he had been helping appeared next to him, holding down the corner of tarp he’d been struggling with. Under his direction, they managed to secure most of the tarps and cloths properly, only losing a few of the first sections he’d struggled with. 

They ran back to the cottage through the pouring rain. Once inside Garak was faced with a shivering frozen girl standing in his doorway, a fact previously hidden by distance and rain. Her dark shoulder-length hair was plastered to her head, her tunic, it must have been red at some point, but was now an indeterminate rust brown color, was plastered to her, dripping water into an ever widening puddle at her feet. Her teeth started to chatter as she stared at him pitifully with wide powder blue eyes. 

He looked for something to dry her off with. At a loss, he grabbed one of his thicker tunics off the hook by the door to use as a makeshift towel, despite wincing internally for the innocent garment. He wrapped the large tunic around her shoulders, briskly rubbing her arms to warm her up. He had seen people do that before, it seemed like a sensible thing to do. 

“Thank you for your help, I believe we managed to save most of the late seedlings.” he said to fill the silence, thinking perhaps talking would stop her teeth chattering so alarmingly. In a daze, she stared past him into the common room, the only room in the house besides the kitchen that was still intact. 

“She really is gone isn’t she?” she said in a small voice, looking at the tidy nest of blankets that served as his bed and gardening paraphernalia stacked on and next to the low bookcases. 

Garak stared down at her in shock. For a moment he had no idea who she was talking about, to his immediate shame. 

“Before… The day before  _ that _ day, she said she had a book for me. A book when she was a child like me.” Her voice broke a little. “Her favorite.” 

He saw her eyes shine with tears before she turned and rushed out of the cottage, dumping the tunic on the floor. Uneasy to intrude on her grief, Garak picked up the discarded garment and moved to the kitchen to make them each a cup of tea, granting her some privacy. 

When he came out she had built up a small fire with scrap from the small debris pile next to the house. It sputtered and smoked, barely giving off any heat at all. He set a mug next to her and draped one of his blankets around her shoulders before sitting behind her on the flimsy folding chair he used in the evenings.

Her thin shoulders shook silently and every so often her hand would move up to wipe tears away. 

They sat like this until the morning sun had nearly diven the sudden storm away, only a hazy mist drifted down now, threatening rainbows and exuberant rays of warm light.

“Did you know Mistress Garak?” a voice roughened by tears asked.

Garak involuntarily glanced at the ruins of the main house, to the exact spot he knew the entrance to the basement was. An old bolt of pain flashed through him, leaving the oily residue of regret behind. 

“For a time, yes, I did.”

“She was kind.”

Garak imagined what his mother’s kindness must have been. An old tunic with patches sewn on it, placed out with the refuse, tucked away in a basket. Broken or half crushed roots gleaned from the garden and wilds, tied up in a bag, seemingly forgotten in the road. Perhaps even an old toy of his that she had found and left lying around where an inquisitive little girl might find it and pick it up.

“Yes, she was kind.” 

He looked down at the little girl curled up in his old blanket, pulled up over her head against the now misting rain, staring into the weak fire. He looked back to the rubble of the main house, a task he couldn’t even think about, even as he repaired the cottage and plowed the kitchen garden, sowed the beginnings of food that would keep him and his neighbors alive over the long hot barren summer. 

He took off his rain poncho and his drenched sleep tunic, folding them with care, setting them down on the chair he had just vacated, and rolled up the sleeves of his thermal under tunic, a habit he kept from the station. He picked his way through the familiar rubble of the main house, before beginning to methodically stack and arrange the rubble surrounding what used to be the entrance to the basement. Not in any particular order or with any kind of purpose, but slowly, a sizable formation began to appear, completely blocking the entrance to his mother’s tomb. 

It would take him months to properly clear all of the stones and fallen timber, but this much, with the warm red sun rising in the west, this much quieted that voice who told him what a bad son he was.

The voice that accused him of not protecting his mother and their family, it was his fault both parents were dead, he was weak and stupid and small for letting something as trifling as exile make him a stranger to the people who had given him everything. This voice that drowned out all of his protests and reasonings, every attempt he took at defending himself or criticizing his parents for their selfishness, blindness, and neglect. Much as when he forced his father to admit his closest held secret during his shri-tal, he felt a sense of freedom sealing the resting place of his mother.

“Goodbye, Mother. I wish...” he whispered, his voice catching on the words, but he’d already said all that months ago, over her body. 

In the hours it had taken him to seal the basement, the child’s riding hound had arrived and the two of them had fallen asleep in a sinuous pile of gangly limbs and damp hair in front of the pitiful fire. The rumpled girl startled awake when the hound raised her long serpentine neck up to mark his return from the rubble.

The child regarded him through bleary eyes.

“Thank you for the tea,  _ Kriva _ .” She said, once again addressing him using the polite form of uncle.

The riding hound nudged his dusty and scraped hands, sniffing delicately. 

“That’s Kado.” She eyed him for a moment before standing up in a rush, dropping the blanket at her feet. He suppressed the twitch of annoyance and the urge to pick it up.

“Thank you for your kindness these past ninedays, I apologise for not introducing myself sooner!” she said through a jackknife bow, a formality he hadn’t seen since before Bammaren Institute. She straightened before adding, “I’m Galina Yessiv, I won’t trespass anymore, now that I know she’s really gone.” 

He recognized the family name, one of the older and more respected families in the sector. She clearly wasn’t homeless, her clothes were threadbare, but clean and she didn’t have the wary look of someone forced to constantly look over their shoulder, so the fact that she was reduced to scavenging when she clearly had someone at home looking after her was a mystery he tucked away. 

“My dear, there’s no need for that. I wish you had shown yourself sooner. In times like these, our community is more important than ever. Mila may be gone, but I am more than willing to step in. My name is Elim.” He paused, calculating how wise it would be to connect himself to his mother. But this was not the world he left nearly nine years ago. If he was going to start over, he needed to begin as he meant to go on. 

“Elim Garak” he said before returning her bow with a slight nod of his head.

She left soon after, explaining her father would worry where she was. Galina climbed onto Kado’s back before urging her to stand. Garak handed her a parcel of extra food, some juicy early rokossa blooms, ration packs Kelas had given him, and a warm winter jacket he’d set aside for her a few days before. 

“Oh before you dash off my dear, you might find this diverting. My mother always said this was her favorite as a girl.” he produced a small violet leather-bound volume he grabbed from the cottage earlier. “Some of the stories in there, you may find them illuminating.”

She eyed the little book warily, “‘A Young Person’s Guide to Duty and the State’?”

“Don’t judge a book by its title. There’s often secrets and subversions even in the most straightforward of concepts, or people.”

She smiled a little at that, and tucked it into the sack with her flowers and ration packs. 

“Safe travels, my dear, come back whenever you like. I hope to see you soon.”

~~~~

As winter wore on, Garak found his life falling into a rhythm not unlike what life on the station had been like. After the catharsis of constructing his mother’s monument, he started the lengthy process of clearing away the rest of the rubble that had once been his father’s home. After he finished the fourth or fifth pile of concrete, metal and wood, he started noticing trinkets and holos of people accumulate around them. Every day he noticed new additions; a crystalline mourning vial filled with tears, an enjoinment binding, delicate cord of red, blue and orange, coiled into a circle, the delicate scroll of a baby’s first shedding tied with twine, and most often, incense burning. He sometimes caught sight of the people visiting, paying their respects to the dead. He was a bit baffled at first that people would assign such significance to what he saw as simple tidying, but he knew as much as anyone that significance was a personal thing. It didn’t matter what the creator’s intention had been, as long as another found meaning in it, who was he to argue.

Galina and Kado came by more often, every few days, and he soon put her to work weeding and fetching things. He was surprised how much he enjoyed the company of a talkative nine year old. She told him about her family, a father and an aunt, and what she and Kado did on the days she did not visit. He quizzed her about the books he’d lent her, pressing her to look under the obvious themes, to look for the lessons hidden within actions and outcomes. After a few months she was a credible conversationalist, countering with and defending her own points and opinions. He found he looked forward to the smile she gave him when he praised her analysis.

He worked in his garden, cleared away rubble, creating more monuments as he went on, volunteered at the Community Mourning Center, cataloging all the people who had been lost and updating city records. They only very rarely were called to a site to collect the remains of someone found in an excavation or new building project. He tried to add a little to the monuments on days they got calls like that.

He saw Kelas once or twice a month, he had started working in a hospital in Torr sector, and worked long hours. It was one of the only hospitals in the city that had accepted offworld aid, and Kelas often quizzed him with questions about interacting with aliens. He answered what he could, but firmly rebuffed his friend’s urging to work as a liaison. That part of his life was over. 

Just as his garden was giving him less work, he started attracting neighbors. Perhaps it was that they too were starting to have more time on their hands as the city healed, or they had gotten used to the strange man who’d taken residence in the old Tain house, but either reason they started to come by with their own commiserations and questions. When was the best time to harvest  _ Yamok _ roots? When should the  _ rokassa _ leaves be trimmed to encourage growth? Did he have any extra late _ johbra _ sprouts they could plant? Before he knew it, his own little corner of Paldar sector became busy.

Then one day in the spring, an elder caught him mending one of his summer shirts and remarked they had just found some cloth hidden away in a forgotten chest, and wouldn’t it be nice to have new clothes for summer, a way to celebrate the return of the warm season, and weather the long hot days. Well Garak may have been exiled for nearly 8 years, but he’d been instructed on good manners and knew a hint when he heard one. Over the following nineday three other neighbors stopped by for some pressing reason, with their own sidelong glances and revelatory discoveries of cloth or old clothes. Exclamations of “it’s just going to waste,” and, “why don't I leave this here and see if you can find some industrious use for it?” Before he knew it, he was a tailor again. Galina was delighted, insisting that since her father was a potter, she had a predisposition for the arts, but after a few attempts to help him, they both agreed she was better off sticking to gardening and reading. 

Natima Lang returned that spring, around the Harvest Festival, with a few other Cardassian dissidents. She sent him a polite note, praising him for what he had done for Damar during the resistance, he’d like to have known how she found that out, but he suspected she had contacts in familiar places. He’d wished her well, and hinted at some sympathetic avenues she might employ, but encouraged her as bluntly as his subtle Cardassian heart could, a successful solitary political career. 

By the anniversary of Liberation Day at the end of summer, the entire city was celebrating the first democratic elections in historic memory. Garak had planned to celebrate with some sweet summer kanar and Kelas’ company in the Sector’s community courtyard, instead he was surprised with being elected as the Community Leader for Paldar sector. It was largely a ceremonial position, an advocate for the neighborhood to the new sector chief, and had been decided by the remaining elders, a nosy talkative bunch who had been some of his best customers and most frequent visitors the past few months. He caught the repressed laughter in Kelas’ eyes as he accepted the sash that came with the office and marked his friend down for an exceedingly scathing remark the first chance he got. 

After the impromptu ceremony he finally met Galina’s father, Yashim Yessive. A sad thin man, his posture spoke of disappointment and heartache, but his eyes lit up with gratitude when he met the man who was being so kind to his daughter. Garak could see a glimpse of the beautiful delicate man he must have been before the war, and by the night was over he’d accepted an invitation to dinner and a very large ceramic bowl with a bold black and green pattern he wasn’t quite sure what he would do with. 

Late that night, he sat out on his patio, enjoying the fading heat of the day, a steaming cup of  _ rokassa _ cider warming his hands. Wind leadened with ozone had cleared the air of dust, making the air feel more like autumn, thunder and lightning just around the corner, and thinned the clouds enough to reveal the starry sky. Things really were improving, it was slow, but it was better than he could have imagined a year ago, crying in the rubble of his childhood home for his mother and a place that was just as unreachable as her.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Underlined Dialogue quoted directly from Star Trek: Deep Space 9 series finale (s7e26) “What You Leave Behind”.  
> In the myth of Orpheus I grew up with, he looks back before he exits the cave, sure that he’s been deceived by Hades. The last thing he sees is Euridyce’s face before she disappears into mist.  
> so’c - taken from Vyc and tinsnip's English-Kardasi dictionary. It’s an organ analogous to the Jacobson’s organ found in many earth reptiles. It detects pheromones and other similar compounds.  
> Salt Glands are a real thing that reptiles, birds, and fish have on earth. Those animals' kidneys aren’t as efficient as mammals’ so they have a special gland that helps them expel excess salt. My own addition to Cardassian anatomy as they are quite reptilian.  
> Timeline: 12 years is completely my own fabrication. Dr. Parmak is discussed in s3e21 “The Die is Cast” and Tain mentioned that the Doctor had already served his time (3 years according to Memory Beta) and was back on Cardassia Prime, plus four to 5 years later, I felt 12 was a pretty logical guess.  
> Nineday: Cardassian weeks have nine days in them. My own addition.
> 
> Next chapter will be a time jump and back to Julian's POV. I hope it will be out by March. Kudos and Comments are dearly appreciated!


End file.
